LONDON (Bloomberg) — Britain plans to extend legal privilege to bankers, accountants and professionals who merge with law firms under a bill to modernise the $19 billion ($35 billion) legal services industry.The changes mean non-lawyers who work with solicitors on litigation, probate or other areas specified in the bill can offer clients advice that doesn’t have to be disclosed in court, a privilege that has traditionally been reserved for lawyers. The changes are part of a wider package of reforms that overhaul the way the UK’s 140,000 lawyers do business.

“We’ve extended legal professional privilege to cover the whole firm and not just the legal professionals within it,” Bridget Prentice, Constitutional Affairs Minister, said at a press conference in London last week to introduce the Legal Services Bill.

The 312-page bill, proposed in draft form in May, gives banks, supermarkets, estate agents and other non-lawyers the chance to team up with lawyers or hire solicitors and set up their own “one-stop shop”.

The aim is to make the profession more consumer-friendly and competitive, said Charles Falconer, secretary of state for the Department of Constitutional Affairs.

“I believe in many places they will follow suit because what they are thinking is our model looks much more further advanced than theirs,” Falconer said.

The bill is expected to become law in 2007 and be in force by 2008, Falconer said.

A parliamentary committee has accused the government of rushing through changes that may tarnish the independent reputation of the UK legal system abroad. The bill also proposes setting up a government-appointed board that will oversee discipline for the profession.

“It just gives the ability to the international bar and the protectionist bars to say, ‘This is a government appointee. So how can you say you’re an independent profession?”’ Heather McCallum, a partner at Allen & Overy LLP, London’s fourth largest law firm.